She hears the screaming first, loud, harsh voices melting into her dreams, invading the restful place and weaving their way among nightmares. Indistinct, the images shift behind her eyes, pleasantly meaningless visions morphing into something sinister, something dark. From the dried out tear ducts darkness creeps, flowing into the edges of her thoughts, infiltrating the fleeting moments of peace she has managed to secure.

She has been dreaming that she has friends. Natraj is there, and others, others she would not call on if waking but whom her sleeping mind does not differentiate. A blanket-back girl she met in the snow, the lesser-known cousin, Amaris, Sacre, Hototo, Mesec, and though the images are slippery with the damp of dreams, she knows that she feels happy. But shadows are forming in the backdrop of the sky, looming and stretching into Rishima, Lace, Mirage, her Fathers, and yet not... twisted and black like the depraved demon from the sky, they leer at the girl, and slowly the others turn as well, each melding into a wretched form, each jeering and chasing and crying in a shrill red voice, we're not okay, and you couldn't save us-

She wakes up shaking, the bright stone in her mane casting a flickering light. Sweat darkens her thick copper coat, pooling on the skin of her shoulders, her thighs. Uneasy she rises, shaking out the silver-gold braids, moon-slashed eyes blinking groggily in the musty, meaningless light. She has made her nest near the Sanctuary's rear, an inlet of stone far from the milling bodies, secret and safe- but no longer, it seems. The voices belong to unknown others; she hears another wild scream, a ghostly wail of wind and death. From the entrance to the haven it echoes and tears, making her shiver and shy away, deeper back than she has gone before- she does not love the underground, and has kept minimal her explorations thus far, pining for the return of sun and stars. But the caverns are crowded and she does not feel like company, and with no safe way to go out, the sleepy girl finds herself stumbling further in, away from the howling and into the still.

Gold legs drag on the dusty ground; she is not yet coherent, and her nightmare has left her pensive and withdrawn. Steps are taken without much thought: she wants nothing but to find some still, and so deeper away from the voices she wanders, drawn by the sound of silence and peace. She does not notice the dark of the pit looming ahead, such is her state of exhausted introversion. The light in her mane casts shadows at bay, offering a halo, a radius of vision she is not yet aware enough to step out of. So when she finds another in it she is utterly perplexed, taken by surprise as the silhouette of the boy appears, stage left.

Firmly she stops, both ears perking up, jolted into wakefulness by her mild alarm. The boy is small; she notes curled wings and a lion's tail, silver and black in the crystalline glow. Briefly she fears he may be one of the phantoms of her dreams, but he does not shift into evil before her, and besides, she has yet to find a monster underground. Even if he were, he is smaller than she, and the thought is a comfort, emboldening her to step forward again, lessening the space between their forms. Black eyes hold the boy with curious withdrawal, skate across him, drink him in. She wonders if she should speak to him, but the silence is heavy in this musty air, and breaking it seems a doomed mistake.

And, truth be told, she does not know what to say. She has counted on Natraj to approach and beguile, to charm the strangers and warm the air. Without him, she finds herself stubbornly lost, unable and unwilling to address even a child. Again, she feels a pang of agony at the loss of her brother, and hopes against hope that he shall find her soon. She searches her mind for something to say, and at last comes up with a belated question- "What is this place?" she asks the child, letting him go to peer into the darkness, her heart skipping a beat at the vastness of the void.

@[Kari]